


Come as You Are

by bananapudding



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananapudding/pseuds/bananapudding
Summary: The root of Okita's contempt for her body is her illness. That is what she's chosen to believe—though she can't help wondering, sometimes, if that contempt is supplemented by the feeling that she was born incomplete.
Relationships: Oda Nobunaga | Archer/Okita Souji | Sakura Saber
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Come as You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Long time no OkiNobu, wow! I missed them, so here's more trans woman Okita content... also not porn this time, since trans people deserve to exist outside of that too.

One thing Okita likes about Nobunaga: she doesn’t ask questions, at least not any more than necessary.

There’d been a “Why?” the first time Okita had pushed her away. An understandable thing to wonder; she’d just had Okita pressed against her bedroom wall seconds before, tongue halfway into her mouth. It was only when Nobunaga’s hands grew too curious, wandering past the jut of Okita’s hips, that Okita could entertain her touch no longer.

“I just… don’t feel up to it,” Okita had answered her, mouth all dried up. Not a complete lie. The notion of letting Nobunaga continue made her feel tight between the ribs, a pressure not unlike the sort that preceded a coughing fit. “Sorry.”

“There’s no need for that,” Nobunaga said. She’d backed off, then, demanding nothing else, and she’s demanded nothing else since.

If there’s any imposition on her part, it’s in the way her fingers still sometimes graze the stretch of thigh that extends beneath the hem of Okita’s kosode whenever they lie in bed together. It’s in the way that she moves to slot one of her legs between Okita’s as they kiss—and that’s where she’s stopped before they can press flush against each other, hands on Nobunaga’s shoulders in a silent plea to halt. Again, just as always, Nobunaga pauses, finding a grip on Okita’s waist and pulling back to look her in the eyes.

“Wait,” Okita says, as if the signal wasn’t already obvious. “I, uh. I’m not—I mean, there’s something…”

Nobunaga’s brows lift. “Yes?”

“I’m—” She swallows, the noise of it almost drowned out beneath the heightened pounding of her pulse. Her sentence hangs on her tongue, fragmented, a vital piece of it stuck in the back of her throat much like the familiar tang of iron. _Say it_ , she thinks, _just tell her_. The noise that comes out instead won’t shape itself into any recognizable words, and the flush on her cheeks remains there out of embarrassment more than passion.

“Not feeling up to it?” Nobunaga asks. Okita gives her a stiff nod, which Nobunaga returns, drawing away. “That’s fine. If you ever want to pick this up later, that’s all up to you.”

“Right.” She pries herself up and shuffles out of the bed altogether, eyes on her own feet. “Later.”

She makes to leave, as she always does, because she never wants to catch a glimpse of whatever expression Nobunaga is giving her. She catches it anyway, unwittingly, a glance over her shoulder when Nobunaga stops her with a call of her name. It proves impossible to read: her eyes keen, but her brows and mouth set in the same flat, impassive lines.

“Okita,” she says, “you know that if something’s bothering you, you can tell me, right?”

“Obviously. You don’t need to worry about that,” she says with a terse little smile, an attempt to shrug off any lingering concern. “It’s nothing we’re not already used to.”

Nobunaga doesn’t say anything for a moment. Her gaze continues to burn into Okita’s, sharp and hot as the rest of her, until she concedes, “If you’re sure, then.”

“Aren’t I always?” are the parting words Okita gives over her shoulder as she dismisses herself, her steps just a little faster than they need to be.

In truth, she’s not sure at all. It’s not a question of whether she wants Nobunaga, because that is the one thing she’s certain of. It’s a matter of whether that want outweighs her fear. There isn’t much that Okita fears, but there are scenarios that play themselves out behind her closed eyelids, paralyzing hypotheticals of all the ways in which she could be discarded like a broken blade. Nobunaga wouldn’t do that to her for her illness, that much she knows. What she can’t be so sure of is whether Nobunaga would do the same if Okita told her why it is, exactly, that she went down in history as a man.

The showers she takes after these encounters are cold, to distract her as much as to chase Nobunaga’s heat from her skin. This will numb her, nullify that want. This, she tells herself, is what is necessary, because she won’t—she can’t—indulge the imagined scenarios she much prefers: the ones in which Nobunaga touches her, all of her, with the same uncharacteristic tenderness she’s always reserved for her and her alone.

***

If there is anything Okita hates about her body, it’s not her sex. It’s her fragility. It’s the pain that starts in her lungs and surges up and out of her when she fights for too long, staining even her vision red with it. Perhaps the Throne of Heroes does have a sense of humor, she always reflects with a measure of bitterness. She was summoned into the wrong body, indeed, a body that can never be made healthy.

No, the excess of her body would truly be of little consequence if only she were the perfect weapon. Then she could ignore everything else about it and wield her blade as she was always meant to. She’d be left with no reason to dwell on how much more desirable she could be, in every sense of the word.

Her illness’s rude interruption, for example, is the only reason for the gash on her upper leg, across the stretch of flesh uncomfortably close to her hip. She could dodge any incoming strike as though it were nothing if her incessant, infernal coughing didn’t paint a bright red target on her.

She could also avoid Nobunaga’s equally incessant, infernal pestering. Nobunaga talks a lot when she thinks she's being useful, Okita’s found; the sound of her voice in Okita's ears tears her between guilt and growing irritation.

It’s for this reason, she tells herself, that she wants Nobunaga out of the infirmary the moment she can be attended to. She’s put up in a bed, a fraction of the pain in her side alleviated, and she only indulges a few seconds more of Nobunaga’s babbling before getting in a “You can leave now” that sounds more curt than she’d intended.

And Nobunaga, the very same Nobunaga who doesn’t ask questions, tilts her head and says, “Why?”

“I mean…” Okita grimaces and shifts her weight. “You don’t need to be here, do you?”

Nobunaga frowns. “So you don’t want me here.”

 _I do_ , she thinks. “I don’t,” she says, “don’t like for you to see me like this.”

“You’ve been in worse shape before, though. Both of us have.”

“And it doesn’t matter, because if you don’t have any wounds to tend to then Nightingale-san is going to make you leave.”

“I mean, I guess, but. I could stick around in spirit form, if you want some company—”

“But I don’t,” Okita cuts her off, tone hard. She hates her own vulnerability as much as she hates what’s led to it. It’s bad enough when it’s a simple matter of torso damage or an injured arm. It would be all the more humiliating for everything to be bared to Nobunaga here and now, when her clothes inevitably need to be cut away to deal with blood trailing sluggishly from her thigh. “I don’t need you to fuss, okay? I’ll be fine, Nobu. Please.”

That unreadable look spreads across Nobunaga’s face again. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

Okita balks. “What?”

“That stuff like this happens,” Nobunaga says. “Or that I want to make sure you don’t die on me. Really, who wouldn’t say the same? It’s dumb to blame yourself for that. Some things just can’t be helped.”

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Nobunaga crosses her arms. "I'm talking about how you have a problem with shouldering blame for things that are blameless."

Okita's immediate response is a defensive, "I do not!"

"You do! You think you have to make up for things that are totally outside of your control to begin with. And that's why—"

Okita's tone drops dangerously. "Nobu—"

Nobunaga's pitch rises to drown out her own. "It's why you're always apologizing when something happens, as if you're an inconvenience—as if I'm not here because I want to be!"

An uncomfortable quiet fills the air between them after that, punctuated only by nearby shuffling and the opening and closing of a drawer to remind them they're not quite alone. Even if Okita wanted to muster a response to that, she can't; the lump in her throat has taken on an unpleasant metallic flavor, and the head nurse herself walks over a second later anyway with her supplies at the ready, giving Nobunaga the sharp look Okita wishes she could pull together.

"Leave," Nightingale says.

To her credit, Nobunaga listens—but not before sparing Okita another wayward glance, brimming not with anger, but with a vague disappointment that cuts deeper than any blade could. She almost wishes Nobunaga would get mad at her over things like this. At least then it would feel as if they're both in the wrong.

But Okita is the one who's being unreasonable. She knows this. Nobunaga, nosy and overwhelming as she often is, only wants to help. Okita has no reason not to let her besides that same fear that has made her put everyone else at arm's length, heart locked carefully inside an incomplete body that she never allows anyone close to, either.

Nightingale casts no judgement upon her when she cuts the rest of Okita's shorts away. Not for her wound, not for anything else. In this case, it's a matter of duty. She wonders what it would be in Nobunaga's case, then.

Her eyes track to the sterile white of the ceiling and its fluorescent fixtures, letting it set off pops of color like fireworks behind them: an ample distraction from a sting worse than any disinfectant.

***

The only thing more difficult for Okita to swallow than the taste of her own blood is her pride. The pain in her leg is gone, but the pain in her chest is not, and she knows its source to be something removed from any physical ailment. She knows, too, that the one thing that will make it go away is knocking on Nobunaga’s door.

So she does. There’s a wait that supplies her brain a nervous excuse of, _Maybe she’s not here. If she’s not here, I can just come back later_ —but then the door slides open, and Nobunaga blinks as if surprised to see her.

“Okita,” she says.

She doesn’t say anything else. For some time, neither of them do. Whether it’s mere seconds or a full minute, Okita can’t tell, but it might as well be the latter for all the sweat that coats her palms by the time she finally digs up her voice to speak.

Nobunaga is the one who stops her, hand raised. “Hold on. You don’t need to stand out there, just come in and I’ll make you some tea.”

That’s so like Nobunaga that Okita almost smiles when she steps in after her, pulling the door shut behind her. Nobunaga is already bustling around for her tea set, so Okita sits at the low table and waits for her, and waits still even when Nobunaga plops down across from her with a kettle in hand.

By the time Nobunaga nudges a full cup towards Okita, she’s already forgotten everything she wanted to say. Whether that’s the reason for the warmth that flares in her cheeks or whether it’s the puff of steam that wafts from the surface of the tea is difficult to tell. Either way, taking a slow and careful sip is excuse enough for her to stall. Just enough that she gathers her words, and realizes that there are only two words that she needs to say.

She and Nobunaga both start, “I’m—” and then freeze, eyes locked on each other. Nobunaga’s narrow a hair, as if that would let her see what’s on Okita’s mind before she can verbalize it.

“Listen, Nobu,” she tries again, “I…”

“No, no, you listen, Okita,” Nobunaga says, but her tone is devoid of any aggression. “Look. I overstepped and hit a nerve the other day, no? So I think I owe you an apology for that.”

“You—huh?” Okita stops to gawk. Of all the things she might’ve expected from Nobunaga, an apology wasn’t among them. She should be the one to apologize, she thinks.

But Nobunaga shakes her head, hand curving around the back of her own neck. “I’m just saying I wasn’t very sensitive, is all. But!” She straightens her spine, lifts her teacup with her familiar nonchalance. “I’m not sorry for being worried. That’s something that can’t be helped, you know?”

Worry. That’s not an emotion Okita associates with Nobunaga, though she knows her to be capable of it in her own strange, detached way. That’s the entire reason she wants to apologize to Nobunaga in the first place: she knows that she’s worried her. She just doesn’t think she’s ever heard Nobunaga admit to feeling such a thing out loud.

 _You’re always apologizing when something happens, as if you’re an inconvenience_. Nobunaga’s words from before float to the forefront of her mind, and her apology dies in her chest, sunk there like a weight. Nobunaga is here because she wants to be, or so she’s said. If Okita is to take her at her word, to believe that Nobunaga would be there even at her most vulnerable, then perhaps “I’m sorry” shouldn’t be what leaves her mouth.

“I forgive you, but—there’s something I’ve been keeping from you,” she blurts instead. Nobunaga watches her, inviting but not pressing, and so she continues, “It’s, um. It’s the reason I don’t like it when you touch me too much. I mean, I do like it, it just sets me on edge because… because I’m already sick, and I didn’t want you to think there was anything else wrong with me, or else you might. Well, not want to be with me.”

The next breath she takes shakes a bit in her lungs. Her hands, too, shake until she curls them harder around her cup, hard enough that the heat of the ceramic almost stings her palms. That must be the reason behind the burn that lines her eyelids, she tells herself.

“People today still think I was a man because most people knew me in life that way. Because even the doctor said so, when I was born.” She swallows, throat tight. “So, even though I’m a woman, I still have…”

“Oh,” Nobunaga breathes, quieter than Okita’s ever heard her. “Okita…”

Okita doesn’t look at her. Not until she hears the soft clink of ceramic against wood, accompanied by something that sounds almost like a laugh. A pair of gloved hands place themselves over her own, and she flinches, eyes darting up on instinct to find a broad smile stretching Nobunaga’s cheeks.

“Hah—ah, don’t misunderstand! I don’t think this is funny at all, I’m just.” She pauses, tongue poking the inside of her cheek as if she’d tucked her words away there. “Relieved? Yeah. I wondered sometimes if something was burdening you, so. I’m glad you told me.” The edges of her mouth relax, then, and her hands move up to the sides of Okita’s face, framing it firmly. “In fact, you should’ve told me sooner! Not that I don’t get why you didn’t, but it was hurting you, wasn’t it?”

“It was, but,” Okita blinks, pupils retreating into the corners of her eyes. “Only because of what you might think.”

One of Nobunaga’s thumbs traces her eyelid, and only then does Okita realize that her vision is a little blurrier than she’d like it to be. “That’s silly,” she says, “you’re silly. Since when is it like you to care what I think?”

“You know what I mean, stupid!”

“Ah… yeah, I suppose I do.” She gives Okita’s jaw a gentle squeeze. “Hey, Souji. Look at me.”

Startled by the use of her given name, Okita does so, just in time to see Nobunaga’s face fill her line of sight. Their lips meet, as slow and chaste as if it were their first time, and Okita lets it happen with a shiver of something like relief. When Nobunaga pulls away, it’s as if she’s taken the heavy ache in Okita's chest with her.

“What I think,” Nobunaga continues, “is that you’re the most competent rival I’ve ever had, and the most exciting lover. That’s why I’ve given you my favor. No matter if your body’s a little different than what I expected, I like it all the same! You’ve got great thighs, and—”

“Nobu,” Okita snorts more than says, teeth in her tongue to fend off the laughter bubbling up from her stomach, “that's enough. Stop talking.”

“What? I’m giving you honest compliments!”

“That’s why you sound ridiculous!” The urge to giggle recedes, though, as she sees how relaxed Nobunaga’s smile appears, no malice or mockery to be found in it. “Though, um. Thanks for trying. That did make me feel better.”

“Trying is the least I can do, isn’t it?” She inclines her body across the table again, less than before, but enough to plant her elbows on it and cock her head so that Okita sees the gleam in her eyes. “But if you’d ever like for me to show my appreciation…”

“N-Not yet,” Okita stammers, waving both hands in front of her. Face hot, she shifts her gaze down to her lap. “One day. But not now.”

“Well, doesn’t have to be now, or anytime soon. Or ever, even.” She shrugs and takes up her teacup. “I’ve already told you what I want, but you should be thinking about what you want instead.”

That makes Okita’s brows knit, but only briefly. She does remember what Nobunaga wants, come to think of it. It was implied more than stated, but she understood it nonetheless: Nobunaga, as much trouble as she has admitting to it herself, is happy just to spend time with her. Okita thinks that might be one of the only cases in which they want the same thing.

“Yeah,” Okita says softly. “I know. Thanks, Nobu.”

“It’s nothing you need to thank me for, you know.”

“Well, maybe not, but what if it makes me feel better to say?”

That causes Nobunaga to laugh again, fuller, more amused this time. “In that case, I suppose there’s no helping it,” she says, pointed grin fixed on Okita. “I’ll just say you’re welcome, then.”

Okita bumps Nobunaga’s knee under the table at that, to another round of raucous cackling. It does nothing to minimize her gratitude, though, for this still is the Nobunaga that she knows and loves: someone who demands something of everyone but nothing of Okita, not even an explanation.


End file.
